All countries have always been governed by the property owning class. With all its faults, capitalism has resulted in "peons" having the most say they've ever had. It's not a lot, but it's sure better than under classical democracy, feudalism, monarchy, theocracy, and "communism" at least as practiced in the USSR, Cuba, North Korea and China.
Countries are defined by land-hoarding class, because the nomadic people define themselves by their group instead of the land on which they live.
Without hoarders (landlords), we wouldn't need to put as much effort towards regulating land use, instead we could focus on regulating behaviours. Ex: "this land is a national park, you are not allowed to trash it. Go next door, there you are allowed to pour the trash from your industrial process into the ground, because it's your private land"